nature
nature at Spoot: Spotted Early is a file of 3 stories. The newest of them: “A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work”, “Volvo's electric EX60 borrows leaves for its seats and a forest for its soul”, and “Your next screen is sewn into your sleeve and that's genuinely weird”. A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work. Volvo's electric EX60 borrows leaves for its seats and a forest for its soul. Spoot: Spotted Early New things, caught while they're still new and a little weird. Spoot finds fresh gadgets, clever inventions, crowdfunding campaigns,… The list below is every nature story on Spoot: Spotted Early, newest first.
A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work
A bird feeder that IDs 11,000 species while you're stuck at work. That's the pitch, and it's a strange little knot to untangle. Birdwatching has gone digital, with smart feeders sprouting cameras and smartphone connectivity, and some people will tell you that defeats the whole point: the quiet, the patience, the break from screens. Fair. But consider the alternative. A smart feeder might be your best chance of spotting a rare bird in your backyard while you're busy with your 9-to-5, logging the visitor your own eyes missed. That's not nothing. It's a trade, attention for automation, and whether it's worth it depends on how much you trust the machine to notice on your behalf.
Volvo's electric EX60 borrows leaves for its seats and a forest for its soul
Volvo's electric EX60 borrows leaves for its seats and a forest for its soul. Seasonal color studies informed the interior, which projects leaves directly onto the seating surfaces. That is the kind of detail that makes you stop scrolling and actually look. The car was driven to Russell Wright's modernist woodland home at Manitoga, which feels like the only appropriate place to land something this deliberately rooted in nature. It is not just green because it is electric. It is green because someone asked what a car would look like if it remembered it came from trees. The mycelium disposable camera we covered recently had a similar instinct, design that acknowledges it belongs to the physical world.
Your next screen is sewn into your sleeve and that's genuinely weird
Your next touchscreen is sewn into your sleeve, and that is genuinely weird. We already wear heaters and Bluetooth speakers, but tech-infused clothing that goes further still looks ugly and nerd. The promise is a fabric that responds to touch, woven directly into the cuff or the arm, turning your own jacket into an interface. It is a wild idea, and it raises the obvious question: will anyone actually wear it? The answer depends on whether the designers can make it disappear into the garment instead of screaming "I am a gadget." If you enjoyed the minimalist logic of CMF's milk-carton speakers, you will appreciate the same challenge here, making the functional feel inevitable, not intrusive.